Desmond was still confident that this place was one of a few options: complete madness, the Bleeding Effect, the Animus, or the afterlife. He'd only just gotten there and it was all a little eerie. It seemed strange that his mind would come up with these hallucinations of people he'd never seen before, and he avoided them anyway. The Animus purgatory had been really specific, and it didn't fit this style, but that was only one example. Basically, this was all suspect. Connor's existence only made him more anxious.

He was reluctantly leaving the empty house he claimed because he was starting to get hungry, and he could continue to ignore people if necessary. He missed having his hoodie, where he could pull the hood up over his face and people mostly left him alone. Desmond was on his way to the inn when he very clearly saw someone he knew even better than Connor, although Connor was more recent. He really did consider stopping in his tracks, turning back around, and starving to death if this place would let him, but why not join in more of the madness at this point?

"First Connor and now you, Altaïr, this is getting ----" Whatever else he planned on saying was ruined when he felt something scurrying down below. Confused, Desmond looked down in time to see a rodent of some kind running across his feet ... and his entire body was encased in ice. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move, and fuck he was going to die again, wasn't he?